The expectation that the Prime Minister will call an election no later than Sunday for either May 14 or May 21 was complicated yesterday by the High Court’s decision to hear an application this afternoon seeking to invalidate a Liberal Party federal executive intervention that has determined preselection outcomes in twelve New South Wales seats. Should the court decline to proceed to a full appeal, Scott Morrison’s path will be clear. Otherwise, the early part of a campaign that commenced over the coming days would be complicated by a legal process requiring resolution before the closure of nominations ten days after the issue of the writs. But with May 21 being the last possible date for a normal election for the House of Representatives and half the Senate, and an imminent resumption of parliament to be avoided, he may not let that stop him.
The action is being pursued by Matt Camenzuli, a factional conservative whose bid to overturn the intervention was dismissed in the New South Wales Court of Appeal on Tuesday. The intervention empowered a committee consisting of Scott Morrison, Dominic Perrottet and former party president Christine McDiven to determine preselections including those of two cabinet ministers who would otherwise have faced challenges: Environment Minister Sussan Ley in Farrer and Immigration Minister Alex Hawke in Mitchell, both allies of Morrison. It also spared factional moderate back-bencher Trent Zimmerman in North Sydney, while further installing new candidates in Eden-Monaro, Parramatta, Hughes, Warringah, Fowler, Grayndler, Greenway, McMahon and Newcastle. For his efforts, Camenzuli was expelled from the party on Wednesday. The Age/Herald reports that lawyers for Scott Morrison argued in the High Court yesterday that Camenzuli’s newly acquired status of non-party member meant he did not have standing to pursue his appeal.
A parallel wrangle on the other side of the fence was resolved last week when the a takeover of Labor’s Victorian preselection process by the national executive was upheld by the High Court, dismissing a request for an appeal against an earlier finding by the Victorian Court of Appeal. Among other things, this process has confirmed the selection of Jana Stewart to succeed the late Kimberley Kitching in the Senate and Linda White to take the other position at the top of the party’s Victorian ticket at the expense of veteran incumbent Kim Carr. The process was imposed in response to the Adem Somyurek branch-stacking scandal and has been chased through the courts since by unions broadly associated with Bill Shorten on the Right and Kim Carr and the Left, who were excluded from a power-sharing arrangement in the Victorian branch and have duly done poorly out of the preselections that have ensued.
While head office interventions have been upheld by court rulings in both New South Wales and Victoria, Michael Bradley of Marque Lawyers noted in Crikey earlier this week that courts in the two states were sharply diverged on the important question of the justiciability of political parties’ internal affairs. Notwithstanding precedent going back to 1934 that parties are merely unincorporated associations whose internal affairs are purely “domestic”, the Victorian Court of Appeal found the matters had been changed by the modern Electoral Act’s requirement that parties must register and have written constitutions. However, the New South Wales Court of Appeal was expressly of the view that its Victorian counterpart had erred, and that these facts did not convert political parties into legal entities. Bradley’s conclusion: “We must hope that the NSW case goes to the High Court so it can resolve the issue of principle definitively.”
Polling news:
• An Utting Research poll for The West Australian found Celia Hammond, Liberal member for the blue-ribbon Perth seat of Curtin, was under serious pressure from independent challenger Kate Chaney, whom she led by just 51-49 after preferences. The poll credited Hammond with 42% of the primary vote (down from 54.0% on the AEC’s redistribution-adjusted result from 2019) and Chaney with 24%, with Labor on 20% (up from 18.6%), the Greens on 9% (down from 15.3%) and the United Australia Party on 2% (up from 1.3%). The poll was an automated phone poll conducted on Tuesday from a sample of 718.
• The Canberra Times reports two polls conducted for the Climate 200 (for which I am conducting work ahead of the federal election – note the disclosure notice in the sidebar) show Liberal Senator Zed Seselja well short of the 33.3% quota he will need to be assured of re-election in the Australian Capital Territory. Redbridge had Labor on 32.7%, Liberal on 22.7%, the Greens on 12.8%, independent David Pocock on 9.9%, independent Kim Rubenstein on 5.8%, the United Australia Party on 1.6% and others on 3.7%, with 10.8% undecided. Community Engagement was similar except that the United Australia Party appeared to be boosted by the absence of an “others” option: Labor 30.9%, Liberal 21.5%, Greens 13.0%, Pocock 11.7%, Rubenstein 5.3% and UAP 6.0%, with 11.5% undecided. With sufficiently strong flows of preferences between non-Liberal candidates, such numbers would put Seselja under pressure from Pocock or Tjanara Goreng Goreng of the Greens. The Redbridge poll was a live interview phone poll conducted on March 24 from a sample of 708; the Community Engagement poll was an automated phone poll conducted March 23 to 25 from a sample of 1331.
• The Financial Review reports a uComms poll for independent candidate Sophie Scamps’ campaign has her at 23.9% of the primary vote in Mackellar, with Liberal incumbent Jason Falinski on 35.2% (down from 53.0% in 2019) and Labor on 18.0% (up from 16.9%). Out of an unspecified undecided component, 28% said they were leaning to Falinski and 25% to Scamps. The poll also found Scott Morrison at 40% approval and 52% disapproval. Based on this incomplete information, the results seem to imply a lead of around 55-45 to Scamps if preferences flow as they did in nearby Warringah and Wentworth when independents squared off against Liberals in 2019. The automated phone poll was conducted on Tuesday from a sample of 833.
• Shortly after similar polls showing Labor ahead in Boothby and Sturt in South Australia, a uComms poll for the Australia Institute finds Labor leading 53-47 in the Liberal-held Tasmanian seat of Braddon, albeit that it was conducted two to three weeks ago. Combining results with the initial voting intention question and a forced response follow-up for the 3.9% undecided, the primary votes are Liberal 35.9%, Labor 34.0%, One Nation 7.3%, Jacqui Lambie Network 7.9%, Greens 5.5%, and independents and others 6.7%. The automated phone poll was conducted March 17 to 21 from a sample of 829.
BeaglieBoysays:
Sunday, April 10, 2022 at 10:22 am
What seats are people in and a quick one liner about your seat…..I’m in Makin, fairly safe Labor now but wasnt always so.
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Corangamite.
Used to be a rural seat, now full of lefty city slickers who drive Audi’s and just love wearing thier puffer jackets and active wear.
Has PVO let off a “wow”?
BeaglieBoy says:
Sunday, April 10, 2022 at 11:28 am
But back in the day we had jounos like Cassidy, Bongiourno, Tingle, Gratten, Red Kerry, etc who would give both sides a grilling if they deserved it….and most may have been tories but they were more professional, and largely kept their biases hidden alittle better
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They were strong journalists but Barrie was seen by Liberals as a labor person and Kerry was heavily criticizsed by the Liberals in the 1993 election campaign and that’s about when they started accusing the ABC of bias and the media companies have a long history of playing politics
Has any government left office with fewer policy achievements? Morrison’s only aim in office was to prevent reform, or socially and on climate change, to turn it back.
Is this the Undertaker Period?
The political coverage so far has missed one of the lessons from the SA Election. The further the seat from Adelaide, the bigger the swing against the Libs. the really big swings might be in all those Nat seats that have been held and not serviced properly for decades.
EGT: “North Adelaide – When Bob Greenwood QC conducted his search for Nazis living in Australia (let in by Menzies) he found about 800, of whom over 100 were living in North Adelaide! Time has moved the authentic Nazis on, but the character remains the same.”
I think that was more to do with South Australian Government policy at the time re public housing, which was a much more significant part of the housing market than in any other part of Australia.
There was a bit of a policy of settling different ethnic groups in different parts of Adelaide. And the eastern European migrants – who included among their number a quite a few war criminals – were encouraged to go to the northern part of Adelaide.
OMG a dorothy dixer question from Phil Coorey first up.
Phil Coorey with the hard hitting questions
classic Morrison
First question to Coorey…
About time the federal election is called
Get rid of Morrison and his cronies out of government
LOL he hasn’t even been re-elected and already the questions start about whether he’ll serve a full term.
https://www.news.com.au/finance/work/leaders/anthony-albanese-opens-up-about-marriage-breakdown-new-girlfriend/news-story/5325dc2084cd0f93bc03c787b77ceb9f?utm_source=SEM&utm_medium=PPC_SEM&utm_campaign={campaign}&gclid=CjwKCAjw3cSSBhBGEiwAVII0Z1hMfB48fY8xcYHR4EyN42fFUiJ8KBEcee8esT_Vzt2kzVzoCPhAUBoCTdwQAvD_BwE
Check out the pics of Albo and Jodie here.
jt1983: “Howard had more pep in 2007 than this.”
ScoMo isn’t exactly exuding loads of confidence today. He’s sounding a bit like he’s reading from an autocue.
Let’s see if Albo can do any better.
Lmao this “the election is not about me” line must show how much Morrison is hated in their polling
“Alan Tudge is still in my Cabinet…”
Yes, talk about Albo’s lack of visibility – but the notion that Labor hasn’t released any policies is absolute bs. Is that seriously the standard we’re getting from trained highly paid MSM journos?
You would think they might pause just once and consider that it’s actually the Libs who haven’t.
Brave Sir Scotty runs away again
My god is that it?
Didn’t see it Lars but there is already evidence that disaffected unionists are heading to Alliance.
Also I read an article on preference flows for NI – both DUP and Sinn Féin are preference averse and UUP and SLDP supporters will more likely cross the community abyss to 2nd preference “other”
Is it safe to turn the telly back on?
Want to see Albo’s PC
Talking up the prospects of a cliffhanger election, or the possibility of a second 2019 is the lowest risk/highest return strategy for the media.
If we get a result in line with the polls and the government is decisively defeated, they will argue there was a late swing to the ALP that nobody could have foreseen. In the meantime, until election day they get to talk endlessly about how thrillingly close the horse race is, and how this or that press conference, or this or that gaffe, is of critical importance to the outcome.
If we do in fact get a second 2019 (unlikely in my view) they will say we told you so.
Lindsay.
Eastern part ( St Marys, Werrington etc ) will go Labor….it’ll be the bogans in Glenmore Park,Penrith, Castlereagh.Emu Plains that will decide it.
Taylormade @ #616 Sunday, April 10th, 2022 – 11:36 am
I am in the new seat of Hawke. Pretty safe ALP seat with local State Govt spending heaps on a level crossing removal (which will really get going after the Federal Election)
The notion that Scotty will serve a FULL TERM if re-elected can be broadcast on repeat to the nation as far as I’m concerned!
Morrison says people are sick of politics then makes it a six week campaign.
People are not sick of politics but they are sick of a shit government.
Second email requesting donations from another Labor rep this time.
Quick out of the blocks!
Objective assessment of opening press conference?
Anyone on the ‘demise of Melbourne’ bandwagon should look away this weekend.
Melbourne is bursting at the seams.
Melbourne back to what it does better than nearly any other city in the world. Multiple sporting events, comedy festival and shows all at the same time.
I’m off to the G this arvo. Then back to Riverina to help make a dent in the conservative stronghold over the campaign.
Itep – as objective as I can be…
It was a low-energy start and his framing of “you might not like me, but that lot are a risk” is frankly, pretty weak.
Jim Chalmers summed it up perfectly on Katharine Murphy’s podcast yesterday:
Yes Scotty is more known, but the more people see the less they like him. Albo is less known but people appear to warm to him the more they see. Which position would you rather be in?
Lynchpinsays:
Sunday, April 10, 2022 at 11:22 am
Boerwar I am surprised Bluey is still around after his particularly disastrous prognostications in 2019.
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So am I.
But he might come in handy this time around. Whatever Bluey says, assume the opposite.
Boerwar @ #1575 Sunday, April 10th, 2022 – 11:48 am
I’ve had 3 so far.
I live in Melbourne. Went out to dinner last night on Smith street. Place was buzzing. Beautiful weather too.
Looks like Morrison has made his first gaffe with the media getting excited about Alan Tudge in cabinet.
Nothing personal but I don’t give a ff about Jodie or Jen.
Taylormade @ #1579 Sunday, April 10th, 2022 – 11:52 am
He predicted the Coalition win in 2016 you know. Much to our chagrin.
Having moved to Melbourne from country WA for study, it is a vibrant albeit congested and expensive place. Friends from Sydney say they prefer it to their hometown.
Warning, punditry – 6 week campaign is a Morrison mistake. Gives people more time to be more comfortable with Albanese (assume he performs moderately well). The best polling for Morrison will be around the 3 week mark.
Mexicanbeemer @ #1582 Sunday, April 10th, 2022 – 11:54 am
Ooo er, replacement for Greg the Lying Hunt in Health, eh?
Just had to talk to an elderly neighbour in Josh F country and all they wanted to talk about was how they haven’t been able to get tradies and its because people are too well paid on welfare (I demurred on this and suggested tradies get paid much more than welfare, maybe they just have a backlog from covid – well, maybe she scowled) and when my wife mentioned Monique Ryan the neighbour immediately said “too close to Labor!”
So still one vote here for Josh, but they don’t get much older than her.
BREAKING: Dutton Calls Up Albo And Asks Him For The Measurements Of His Opposition Leader’s Office
hazza4257 @ #1585 Sunday, April 10th, 2022 – 11:55 am
This Sydneysider prefers not to agree with them.
BK @ #1334 Sunday, April 10th, 2022 – 7:57 am
Well it’s nice to know she hasn’t been commenting here.
Is ‘power’ the new euphemism for shit ?
Arky,
It may have been an opportune time to mention that Labor are the only ones who want to train more Tradies to overcome the skills shortage. 🙂
poroti @ #1592 Sunday, April 10th, 2022 – 11:58 am
Horseshit. Yes.
@SK – longer campaigns NEVER help the incumbent, large majorities saved Hawke in 84 and Turnbull in 16 (barely).
This is all ego. He thinks he can out-campaign Albo. If the opening salvo is any suggestion, he’s certainly not got the energy of three years ago.
Confessions @ #1549 Sunday, April 10th, 2022 – 9:36 am
Hardly surprising that he needs to when his bullshit often changes daily.
Lol Taylormade